In Rockford area since: I was born and raised in Rockford, and moved to Charleston, South Carolina, for college. After spending 16 years in Charleston, I moved back to Rockford in 2012.

Transform Rockford involvement: I’ve had the pleasure of serving on the communication team, along with the feedback sub-committee.

Quote: One of the shared values that speaks the loudest to me is responsibility. Taking responsibility and being held accountable for my own actions, as well as participating to my best ability was something that was instilled in me at a very young age and throughout my career. I truly believe that to transform our region, we cannot rely on others to be held responsible or accountable if we’re not willing to pitch in and stand together as a united community. For our voice to be heard and our hopes for our city to be counted, we must be willing to become involved and own a piece of this puzzle.

What’s new at TR: With the Vision Rally and the sharing of the vision statement and impact statements, there seems to be great discussions taking place all over our region. Our feedback committee fielded more than 250 phone calls in a two-hour span, and aside from the sheer volume of calls, what impressed our team the most was the thought and passion behind the voices on the other end of the line. To have the opportunity for one-on-one interaction and dialogue with each other can only strengthen our vision.

What’s next: With the vision intro, statement and impact statement feedback efforts drawing to a close, many volunteers are ready to dig through the data and feedback to help create our next steps. From here, our teams can begin to design the strategies, implantation plans and timelines for our actions.